Nov. 29, 1902.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
429 
abundance. In a few days, however, after the vegetation 
is down in lower Illinois, we should hear of better sport. 
It has been fair and warm, with few frosts thus far, and 
the week just past has shown a food brand of October 
weather. _ 
To-day I got a telegram from State Warden Fullefton 
of Minnesota to "start at once" for his cit.v, for a quail 
hunt. It seems a bit far to the north for quail, but as I 
am curious in regard to that, and as the invitation seems 
to come in the nature of a com.mand, I reckon I shall have 
to go, however much against my will. We shall_ see about 
this rumored invasion of Minnesota by Bob White. 
Mfnaesota Deer Season. 
St. Paul, Minn.. Nov. 22.— The Minnesota deer season 
is now at its height, but it is not yet time to tell much 
about the totals, "for the parties are not yet out of the 
woods, and returns are not in. One St. Paul party came 
back this week with eleven deer. I saw one hunter come 
in with three deer this morning. Mr. P. O. Stephens, of 
Detroit, j\Iinn., is in camp near Ilasca Park witli three 
friends. On the 17th they wrote down that the country 
was full of deer. They had killed five at that time, in the 
first week of the season, and said that the snow hanging 
on the bushes made it hard hunting. They expected good 
hunting in case of a wind, which should free the under- 
growth of snow. 
Moose. 
Minnesota has moose, lots of them, but its resources are 
not fully exploited. One can go into the northwest part 
of the State, or the extreme northeast part, the latter being 
the easiest place to get a moose. Then there are Tower 
and Grand Rapids, two of the more usual points of entry 
to the Avoods. I do not discover any regular system of 
guides or camps. 
On the St. Louis Rivef last fall, a young photographer 
of this city got pictures of seven moose in a rim of twenty 
miles. 
Word is in to-day from Mr. Frank Cyr and partj% who 
are in at Crane Lake Portage, this State. They now have 
two line moose and six deer hung up, the moose having 
good heads. . 
Wiscansbi Game Law . 
Things do not look as well in Wisconsin as they might 
this year. Here is a State which, with appropriations and 
license fees is thought to have had a fund of over $70,000 
last year available for purposes of game protection. Its 
laws, while not faultless, are, at least, not so bad as they 
, might be. and have been put on the statute books after 
' hard fighting and hard thinking. In short, the hardest 
stage of the fight for game protection was won in Wis- 
consin, as her spring shooting law alone might indicate. 
It is. tberefore, a matter of regret to learn that the dis- 
contented, 'thoughtless, selfish element which has always 
caused so much trouble in Wisconsin, is now stirring up 
trouble over tlie game law. and will attempt at the next 
i-ession of the Legislature, to amend them to the point of 
rendering them practically wide open. The first fight will 
be to abolish the law which prohibits spring shooting. 
The market hunters and dealers in game will attempt to 
• still further modify the existing statutes. The best fea- 
tures of the Wisconsin laws are due to the earnest efforts 
of a small but devoted body of sportsmen, and it would 
be e\nl news to hear that all their work had come to 
naught. It is time to rally again: Watch this next Wis- 
consin Legislature. 
Hard L-Jcfc for Djt nelly. 
At 3 .^o to-day Judge Finehout denied the motion for 
new trial of Stanislaus Donnelly, attorney, under the 
Bentncr administration, for the State Fish and Game 
Commission of Minnesota, who was earlier found guilty 
of killing two ruffed grouse out of season. (These were 
the birds discovered by chance on a sleeping car early last 
September.) Mr. Donnelly says he will go to the Su- 
.preme Court. His defense is that of ignorance of the 
law, 
• He ivy Bigs of Djcks. 
Chicago, Nov. 2,\. — The Powers boys, of Decatur. Ill- 
owners of a fine bit of duck marsh in the Illinois River 
valley, are stated to have turned out recently the modest 
bag of over 800 ducks, mostly mallards. These are the 
men earlier mentioned in these columns as having sold 
1.900 mallards one spring, all these killed in a short time. 
It is understood that the Powers boys put up the plea 
that their marsh costs considerable to keep up. and that 
they need the mottey. I have a great deal of sympathy for 
a fellow who needs the money, for all of us have been 
broke and up against it now and again, but the sentiment 
of American sportsmanship bars from its ranks men who 
choose to make a living at market hunting nowadays. 
There are so many better ways of getting on in the world 
in these progressive American times. In the old world 
a prince or king or emperor may kill his hundreds of 
pheasants in a dav, his "80 rabbits in 20 minutes," as is 
credited to the German emperor, who also sometimes 
shoots down 50 wild boar in a day. the boars being driven 
pasth im along a fence. A man may do that in Europe 
and be a king. He can't do it in America and be a two- 
spot. The Powers boys have no cause to feel aggrieved 
that the sentiment of the American sportsmen unhesitat- 
inglv condemns them. It is not the sentiment which is 
wrong, but they themselves. Now, wouldn't it be much 
nicer of them just to stop selling game, and to put a 
daily limit to the bag on their own marsh, and make it a 
reasonable one? I promise them, when they begin to do 
this, they will find themselves entering upon a new world 
of enjovment. whose delights thev have not yet dreamed. 
Tt will mean that they will really have a much better time. 
When these men can announce to the sportsmanship of 
America that they have stopped slaughter and stopped 
sale forever, at home or abroad.' it will surprise them to 
see how many hands of friends will be reached out to 
them. It will surprise them to see how much better times 
thev will have then than they have now. 
E. Hough. 
126 Hartford Buildivg, Cbicago. 
All communkaitiong intended for Forest ahd Stseam should 
»lway^ be addretsed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co., New 
Vork, and oot to say iadMdn«l cuum^ vitli tbe paper. 
Two Men in a Box. 
It is not always that we can look for new experiences 
in life, and in order to know as nearly as we can just 
what we are goir.g to encounter, that we can secure a 
treatise to fit the occasion, and thus combine the theoreti- 
cal with the practical and make them dovetail. 
Being in search of new sensations with the shotgun, it 
occurred to me that I should accept an invitatitm sent 
me from Bayport to shoot ducks from a battery, and not 
caring to appear wholly as a novice, I decided \o r^Q. 
up a bit on duck shooting, so I secured a copy of Mr. 
George Bird Grinnell's "American Duck Shooting, and 
immediately studied this particular method of bagging 
these suspicious yet foolish fowl. - 
Mr. Grinnell describes in the most complete detail the 
exact way in which it is done, and his plates show pre- 
cisely the position of battery and decoys, even to the brant 
extras as a base to your submerged lonesomeness. So ex- 
actlv alike did I find his descriptions and Capt. Le Roy 
Still's wooden distributions that I openly accused the cap- 
tain of having read the book, but he only insisted that 
if Mr. Grinnell described it that way he did it right. Thus 
do learned doctors sometimes agree. 
It would be, however, impossible for the author to have 
furnished sensations enough to go around among the thou- 
sands of sportsmen who have had, and for all time to 
come will take, their initiative sprinkling in a Great 
South Bay battery, and it is of these sensations that I 
would speak. 
Battery shooting is a poor cure for nervous diseases. 
This can be proven bv Mr. Chas. Keith and vouched for 
by me, because I did not fortify myself against snake 
bites and chills and fever. The close proximity in which 
one comes in contact with his neighbor in a double battery 
should make one as careful in selecting a companion for 
this sport as in choosing a wife; for, in addition to 
treading the same plank with four feet, there are four 
barrels loaded, and nearly always within a few inches of 
those same extremities. However, I am glad to say that 
in thi<= particular case nothing disagreeable happened ex- 
cept missing, and this was done so often that I wondered 
that many of the ducks didn't come back just to see what 
had scared them. They must have been nine-tenths 
drakes. , • ..u 
Mr. Keith and T were carefully stowed away in that 
winged box, and were told to lay low and keep quiet ; and 
this w^e proceeded to do, while Capt. Still boarded the 
sloop and sailed awav. And right here I got my first real 
impression of helplessness of man, under certain circum- 
stances. Through the mist the great red sun appeared 
just between our feet. From the distance there came 
bounding across the bay the weird call of the loon ; and in 
another direction the metallic whir of thousands of power- 
ful wings, as those vast myriads of ducks, disturbed by an 
approaching sail, broke for new quarters; while our 
frail and heavilv freighted craft slopped m a choppy sea 
as though the burden were too great to bear ; and I wan- 
dered what thev were doing at home, and how much they 
would miss me'. It was at this stage of thought that Mr. 
Keith being short of stature, but striking a real manly 
average in thickness, suggested that I. being of slender 
build." do a bit of rubbering, which I did to my further 
discomfort, as there was nothing in sight except wooden 
ducks and water. A thin' veil of mist had shut out even 
the friendlv sun and swallowed up the sloop. So I went 
back to the dear ones at home, dried their eyes, assured 
them I was still here, but didn't know how long I would 
be ; and just then one little roller escaped around the cor- 
ner of the floating screen at our head, landed just under 
my ear and came out in my left boot, as five hundred 
hroadbills swung around our' decoys into the wind and 
tried to see which one could light nearest to our tail- 
board. I felt smothered, yelled at Keith, grabbed my 
gun and shot in self-defense, and won out handsomely- 
saved myself and every duck there, except that one fool 
duck did" get panickv. and Keith dined on him a few days 
later. It was a nsw game to me. the action of the bat- 
tery on the water, the suddenness of their arrival mixed 
up 'with a kindlv remembrance of all my past .frle^^ds.lm- 
nerved me; and' flight after flight escaped me, until I de- 
termined to overcome all sensations and get down to busi- 
ness. So the chills and ducks passed on until neither 
%\ ere in sight, and I boarded that sloop with a predomi- 
nating sensation of hunger and disgust. 
\fter lunch I insisted that Capt. Still take my place, as 
I liked sailing better. Keith now being with a veteran 
duck hunter and wanting to be just right, asked the cap- 
lain after thev were stowed away if his head was low 
enough. "Yes," said the captain, "your head is all. right; 
but reef vour stomach. The ducks will think they are 
eoing ashore on a sand dune." Nothing, however, short 
of a° fcrty-four-pound iron decoy could have brought 
about the desired result. 
At three in the afternoon I relieved the captain and 
proportionately relieved the danger to the ducks. At this 
time they began com.ing in in small crowds, occasionally 
a single or double, Avhich made very interesting shooting, 
especiallv for the right-handed shooters, which wasn't I, 
and Mr.' Keith had lots of fun. the position of the battery 
being to the right at the thicker end of the pear-shaped 
decoy plant. I, however, gained sufficient confidence that 
the batterv would hold up till night, so that I made some 
very .satisfactory kills; and boarded the sloop a few. mo- 
ments before sundown with a feeling that after all it was a 
waste of monev buyina; accident insurance. 
Venison steaks at the Bayport Hotel later completed 
fully a day of mixed emotions, and dissipated for the time 
being at least my early morning fears. At three thirt>' the 
next morning found us pulling on the hoofs of confidence 
and prepared for an.vthing from ducks down to the verj' 
near bottom of the bay. A moon set and a sun rise going 
on at the same time are a greeting to the early riser, and. 
in fact, to all rnankind who will partake of these early 
luxuries well worth seeing. It was a morning brimful 
of promise, overflowing with beauty, furnishing other sen- 
sations than fear, and completing a regular holiday as- 
sortment of feeling; and we both felt glad we had come. 
The day proved a successful one, with good shooting and 
enough kills to feed bigger families than ours. 
I must confess a fascination for this kind of shooting. 
To be sure there does exist a lurking element of danger, 
which can, however, be eliminated to almost an entire 
degree by the selec-tion of a competent captain— ?one who 
notes the slightest change of wind or rising of the seaj 
one who carries a compass and knows how to use it, and 
whose bump of orientation is well developed. In such 
■ hands one is entirelv safe. I believe Capt. Still to possess 
all these qualities, i'n addition to the numerous other con- 
veniences at his hands. Calms or fogs have no terror for 
him; he goes just the same. An auxiliary engine in his 
sloop Ulrica assures the practicability of moving when it 
is time to move. . 
We arrived in New York Sunday morning, Mr. Keith 
looking the picture of the time present, his ducks show- 
ing the time past ; I, Avith ducks and beard of Jwo days' 
gathering, and drooping from the reaction of feelings in- . 
tense. We wait at the ferry for a car, when a typical 
newsboy spies us, stops yelling his wares, looks us over 
and calls out to a fellow merchant, "Say, Jimmy, et's^easy 
ter see which o' dem guys killed dem ducks, ain't it ?" 
Thos Elmer. 
New York, Nov. 24. 
Long Island Notes. 
Bayport, L. I., Nov. 23.— The past week has been 
rather a disappointing one for ducking, the birds being 
very wild and difficult to stool, owing, it is said, to the 
very mild weather which has been almost like summer. 
But with the advent of the present cool spell and high 
wind the present week promises to be good. Quail shoot- 
ing has been fairly good, a dozen to 20 being bagged with 
any ordinary shot. Guide Will Brown out on Thursday 
afternoon, ran into a covey of about 20 birds, 6 dropped 
with the first barrel and I with the second. He afterward 
haeged 6 more of them, which considerably reduced that 
covey. A very large number of gunners are expected 
here for over Thanksgiving, it being almost impossible to 
procure sufficient guides, and the more the south side 
of the island gets known I am convinced the more popu- 
lar it will become with lovers of the gun. 
The recent shooting accident in this village cast quite, 
a gloom over the conimunity, it being another instance, of 
the danger of being careless with a gun; a lesson, no 
doubt, to a great many, but a very costly one at that. A 
youth of 19. the only son of a prominent business man 
here out quailing with two companions, came to an apple 
tree. He took hold of the barrel of the gun and attempted 
to knock off an apple with the butt end and received the 
full charge in his stomach, and died almost immediately. 
It is the only serious accident reported this season in 
this part of the country. The deer hunting season closed 
(it was a very successful one) and not a single accident 
reported around here, which is rather unusual. . . 
H. Stoke§- 
Ctffirittjck Ducks. . 
Currituck Sound, Nov. iS.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Our opening day for ducks. Nov. 10, was as 
bright and warm as a summer day, and has continued so 
up to date. About 7.000 ducks were killed the first day 
and 2.000 the second. Since then the shooting has been 
rather poor. There has hardly been a ripple on the water 
during the past week until to-day, when we had quite a 
storm, and there are indications of cooler weather to- 
night. We have an abundance of wild celery and other 
foods, and when the weather gets right will have fine 
sport again. I think the Swan Island and old Currituck 
clubs have as manv ducks in theeir marshes as they have 
had in manv years, which is due principally to the pro- 
tection the}'-' are given. About one hundred and eighty 
ducks to one gunner was the largest bag I have heard of. 
Personally I have had keen sport, and for the benefit of 
my brother duck shooters. I would advise them to pur- 
chase a Mullin's "Bustle" ducking boat if they expect to 
do pond or point shooting. I just secured one this fall, 
never having seen one before; and for this kind of shoot- 
ing I think it has no equal. 
Swans arrived about ten days late this season, but they 
came in abundance on the 15th and l6th. Canada geese 
are very plentiful, and there are the largest numbers of 
black ducks, wddgeon and pin tails I have ever seen. 
Mallards are not so plentiful as last season, but we have 
more than ufeual. I am glad "to see in Forest and Sxre^^m 
that there are plenty of ducks north and east of"iis. 
-" More Anow. 
Vancouver Island Notes. 
Cumberland. B. C, Nov. 12. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: The tracking here has been good recently, for 
several inches of wet snow have fallen, and the hunters 
have killed a good many deer. 
On the other hand, there has been an unusual number 
of cases of men lost in the timber, and certain parties 
have been out searching for a man named -George Allison 
for nearly a week now. Allison was lost Nov. 6, while 
hunting on the mountain near Quartz Creek. He and 
his companion started from camp togetlier to hunt on 
McDouglas Mountain, but when the companion, _ M. 
Hennessey, returned to camp in the afternoon, Allison 
was not there, nor did he get in at all. The next morn- 
ing Hennessey looked for Allison for some time, but 
failing to find him. returned to the settlement and got 
help. The search was continued, but at last accounts 
. without result. It is feared that some accident has hap- 
.pened. since Allison knew the ground ^vell, and cotild 
hardly get lost. When he left camp he had no food with 
him and was lightly clad. Since then snow has been fall- 
ing and the weather has been cold, so that if he had fallen 
and injured himself, there is danger that he may have per- 
Lshed from the cold. . , _ 
All the other lost men have found their way to camp. 
^ G. 
Surgeon-Colonel Pringle writes to the London Times 
concerning an interesting example of elephantine memon,'. 
At the Zoo the other day, with all the Anglo-Indian's re- 
gard for respect, he desired the elephant his little boys 
had been riding to "salaam karo" before he got his bun. 
The elephant looked at him hard and thought it oyer fer 
a bit. then he sm — no he did not smile intelligently. He 
remembered his manners, as they say in the nursery, and 
made most correct salaam, to the utter amazement of 
his keeper. The incident is worth noting, as it appears 
that this elephant has spent seventeen %'ears in the Zoo- 
logical Gardens, and inquiry revealed that he had never 
been requested to salaam since his arrival. 
